March 2023 Catch Report

The start of the river season and rising temperatures provided lot's of promise for our anglers up and down the country, which proved to be the case. Although the conditions were not always favourable, with unsettled weather making it difficult to fish at certain times through out the month, we received plenty of catch reports spanning across all disciplines. Enjoy our March 2023 catch report below.

Fly Fishing
 

The river season began on March 3rd and started well for Ceri in the fly shop, in early March before the rain the Usk fished well, with several good fish to 19 inches (example below) being taken on dry CDC olive patterns by Ceri early on. 
 

With the rain the bigger rivers have been up and down, so smaller streams and headwaters have been the best bet. The upper Sirhowy has produced excellent sport as have the small tributaries of the Wye, where Ceri caught the absolutely stunning brown trout of 18 inches below, using the new Greys Lance 8’ #4, Greys Tail reel and a scaled down Euro nymph set up.

The wild reservoirs are now open, Ceri had 5 on Talybont on 20th March and lost a few more in a couple of hours fishing, including a double hook up. Fish landed in the Snowbee 3-in-1 nets we sell, flies being the lures in the ‘Flies for the Wild lakes of Wales’ sets.

Ceri does a bit of occasional guiding in South and Mid Wales on river and lake for wild trout, for more details check out his personal web page fly fishing in Wales.

Luke Gater, who is a regular feature in our blogs headed down to his local river for some euro nymphing at the start of the season, accompanied by a few of his fly fishing friends.

The nymphs proved to be a deadly method for the browns, sitting in deeper pools and slacks. Here are some stunning welsh brownies from a high and pushing small stream.

Our dispatch manager Ryan Healey often enjoys a few hours on the fly or on his local coarse lakes, but last time out he decided to combine the two. 

With a small rise in temperature Ryan headed down to the Barry Ponds, which are part of Glamorgan Anglers association. Armed with some of our Urban Carp bugz, he managed to land two nice carp towards the end of the session after a couple of missed takes!

Sea Fishing

Quality Bass continue to pop up along the Bristol Channel. Joe Gamlin, who is an entrant in our Garry Evans cod competition and Bass pool, landed this fantastic bar of silver, weighing in at 5lb 9 3/4oz. Joe's bass that puts him second in our bass pool was caught at Ogmore Deeps, a popular South Wales mark which is known to be home for plenty of big bass, as well as plenty of other species.

Another keen junior angler, Max Worsey also got amongst the bass during the a Shore League Match on March 26th. Accompanied by his father Benny and armed with some of our sand eel & squid wraps, the duo headed down to Marcross in search of a few fish. Max was using pulley rigs with 2/0 circle hooks, which have become an extremely popular style of hook in recent years due to their reliability, often hooking fish in the corner of the mouth.

Despite the tricky conditions, Benny landed 4 dog fish, a pouting and a rockling, whilst Max's bass was enough to beat his current PB. 

Our Cardiff store manager is building a reputation as a bit of an all round angler, with his recent target being blonde rays. Last autumn, Rich had most of his success on a mark called 'the Spit', a sand bar that is exposed over low water. The larger tides are ideal for this low water mark, is it means more of the sand bar is exposed, allowing anglers to fish for longer periods. With his previous sessions in mind, he decided on the spit as his go to mark for his most recent session.

Rich manged to land his target species, using squid and sand eel wraps baited on large circle hooks on 5 foot pulley rigs. 

The Thornback Rays appeared to be on the feed throughout March, with oily fish baits such as bluey and anchovies proving to be a deadly approach. 

The fish pictured below were caught from popular South Wales venue's, Cardiff Foreshore and Penarth Pier.

The Canary Islands can be a fantastic venue for hunting big fish from the shore without having to travel half way aroubnd the world! Fuerteventura has certainly become a hot spot in recent years, with various Ray species, Bonito, eels and much more within distance from the rocks. Knowledge of local marks is absolute key whilst fishing these shores, which is something Roy Tapper has gained over numerous trips. 

During his last trip with 3 friends, the guys had a wide range of species including sting rays and bonito. With customers fishing these shores almost every week, we have lot's of experience and information to share with you if you are looking to head out on one of these trips, so feel free to give us a call, email or visit us in store and we can point you in the right direction.

The end of march meant that our 2022-2023 cod competition came to a close, so we thought it would only be right to say congratulations to this years winner, Anthony King. Weighing in at 17lb 3.3/4oz this fish was head and shoulders above the rest of the leader board! 

If you would like to take part in next years competition, keep an eye out across our social media platforms for the 2023-2024 start date.

Coarse and Carp

Accompanied by his parents Dave and Rhian, 6 year old Hunter has been out and about on the coarse lakes.

Armed with their new Free Spirit Helical rods the trio headed down to Barry Ponds to test them out. Throughout the day they had 38 carp, with Hunter landing his first carp off the surface! With fish up to the 15lb mark, it's fair to say the new Helical rods proved that they are fantastic value for money.

Lamby Lake is an exceptional Carp and coarse fishery situated in Parc Tedelerch, Cardiff. Roughly 10 acres in size and full of  rich animal and plant life, Lamby provides the ideal environment for Specimen carp and other species thrive. The lake normally closes at the end of March for a short period, but there were some beautiful fish coming out just before closure.

James Honey (pictured top left & right)  had an absolute gem in his last session, whilst Aled Denton (pictured bottom left) was chuffed to beat his PB with this 34lb chunk, tempted by a Mainline Cell hook bait.

Pentwyn lake has been producing some fantastic fish recently, with carp now pushing over the 20lb mark. Mya did an overnight session with her Dad and was rewarded with a New Personal Best! 

Weighing in at 23lb, this lump of a Mirror took a Pro Baits TT hookbait with end tackle purchased from our Cardiff store.

Spinning & Lure Fishing

Despite being well known for targeting salt water species with his brand Catch & Cook, Joe Shaw switched it up and had a fantastic Pike session last weekend at the Llangorse Kayak fishing European Championship.

Joe landed 2 jacks & this cracker at 90cm which was enough to give him 6th place

Using the HTO Rockfish 1-7g LRF rod made the fishing a little bit more exciting!

Darren Bradbury has been heavily into his lure fishing over the winter, ditching his carp set up for a pike rod on his syndicate water. He was able to round off his winter pike season on a high, with this perfect Pike caught on a soft plastic lure.

With warmer temperatures on the way, we hope to have plenty more lure reports for our April round up.

We hope you enjoyed reading this months review, for a chance to be featured in next months catch report, feel free to send in your catch reports with a brief description to our email or in the comments section for this blog. Make sure to keep yourself up to date on our social media platforms for daily content.

For tips and advice, feel free to get in touch and we will be more than happy to help!